


now i'm the one who can't let go

by Patcho418



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, F/F, Heavy Angst, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:41:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27990180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patcho418/pseuds/Patcho418
Summary: Cinder and Winter reconcile after Cinder is abandoned by Salem...but does Cinder really deserve this life after everything she's done?Inspired bythis amazing comic.
Relationships: Cinder Fall/Winter Schnee
Comments: 16
Kudos: 59





	now i'm the one who can't let go

After so many years apart, Cinder’s at least thankful that Winter’s still just as beautiful as she always remembered.

She’d always kept those memories close, pocketed away just for herself when her heart strayed a bit too far. She remembers Winter’s sapphire eyes light up at any accomplishment before her cheeks burned with embarrassment, a swirl of blue and red that had no business being as attractive as it was. She remembers Winter’s hair, always held up in a tight bun and stark white, though in the rare instances Cinder had gotten any kind of closer look the shades of black peeked through, a small reminder of the beautiful imperfections Winter always tried to mask. Winter’s skin had been soft, fair, sending her heart in spirals with every stray touch, and her voice had been low, direct, commanding, and Cinder remembers melting at the proud timbre coating her words.

It’s good, then, that Winter remains as beautiful as Cinder had committed to memory, when she herself has become so monstrous.

And for what?

A hopeless, futile attempt at the same power she’d been kept from for all of her life? A righteous cause tainted by black words and burned to a crisp by stray embers? Countless lives ripped away, and those are hardly counting the ones she’s taken herself.

It’s a wonder Winter ever allowed her to step foot into her room, her skin flecked with scrapes and cuts and burns, tears white-hot as they’d streamed down her pale cheeks. With nowhere else to go, without Salem’s grace to guide her anymore, she’d arrived back where it all began. Back where she’d first headed down that dark, twisted path and turned away from the one person who could ever pull her back.

She’d expected Winter to kill her, frankly, but in place of violence Winter had chosen to comfort her. In place of cuts and scrapes, Winter had left love marks and lipstick along her neck and shoulders. In place of hatred and anger, Winter greeted with her suspicion, then apprehension, and then a familiar glint in those blue eyes. Familiar, unspoken, but written into both of their hearts like the memories Cinder had cherished.

For a moment, Cinder had felt something else, something she’d missed for so many years, something she knew she’d always wanted and yet had never strived for. Power was so much easier to take, after all, than love would be to receive.

Cinder looks across the bed now at Winter, her white hair spilling messily against the hand pressed against her cheek. Years ago, Winter would have never let anyone see her in such a state, but in her deep, tired slumber she could probably care less about the optics. After all, she’d just bared herself entirely to Cinder barely an hour ago, every scar marking her perfect skin, every gasp and moan otherwise unbecoming of someone like her.

It’s Cinder who’s still concerned with herself.

She peers down at her shoulder, at the trail of dark pink kisses left along her collarbone, to where stretched flesh meets throbbing black shadow. Her body has been morphed and mutilated so much, she wonders if it’s even worth loving this way. Winter’s kisses sit on her skin like scars of their own, and they're just as painful, as her chest tightens and her mind rejects the idea that she deserves any of this love.

She’d long since given up on love, thought it beyond her, beneath her. Why now does she get to come back and fulfill secret fantasies she’d dreamed up when she was young and hopeful to change the world?

Her eyes trail tiredly back to Winter, and her brow furrows. She’s so beautiful, so peaceful, and Cinder can’t help but reach out to brush her fingers against her skin and feel everything she’d given up when she decided power was more important than them.

Even against her course, grainy Grimm hand, Winter is soft and cool, a welcome relief for the flame that always crackles within her, always caught between a sizzle and a roar but always searing nonetheless. Winter stirs against her hand, and Cinder almost pulls back, before settling back against the pillow with a gentle groan that just barely pulls a smile across her lips.

Maybe it’s this that Cinder misses, or maybe it’s the chance of this that she regrets leaving. She’s grown so hollow, glass shaped by flame into a weapon and pointed at another’s enemy past its shattering point. She wonders, with the ice that coats Winter’s life, with the frost that she seals her heart with, if Winter has found that same point, too, and if she could have been there to see it. To _stop_ it from happening.

It’s unfair to her, and it’s unfair to Winter, and she can’t help but feel heat creeping into her veins when she thinks that she’d run away from this for a life that led nowhere. 

_Maybe in another life,_ she thinks, _we could have had this all along._

Another life looks different than the oblivion just outside Winter’s window, but with every passing day Cinder loses sight of how it looks different. What details change. How many smiles she's missed out on. Nights of peace and silence like this that aren’t muddled by her own anguish and self-loathing, or where the shadow of the monster she's let herself become doesn't lurk in the ever-shrinking space between them.

She doesn’t deserve another life. She got the life she deserves.

Cinder’s muscles tense, her jaw sets, and she pulls away from Winter, suddenly scared to touch her, as if doing so would unlock the answer to all her doubts, show her what she gave up and float it in her vision forever as punishment for every horrible action she’s taken since. She’d rather not find out what other mistakes she has to live with.

Her eyes squeeze closed and she turns over in the bed, away from Winter, away from all the painful reminders tearing at cherished memories, before sitting up and reaching for her clothes scattered along the bedroom floor. She dresses quickly and silently, peering over her shoulder occasionally to make sure Winter’s still asleep, though she opts to leave her boots off for now to make leaving easier. Of all the things she can’t bear, right now the worst is having to explain herself to Winter after tonight.

The numbers on Winter's bedside clock shift to midnight as Cinder stands from the bed. She pads silently across the dull carpet, her steps slow and tentative, her thoughts pulling between fantasy and reality between her footfalls. Midnight paints the room in solemn blue, dark and heavy, while teal lights the way from the constant shine of everything Atlas is, everything its light hides in its blinding brilliance. She can leave, and not just this room, not just this chance at a life she'd played over again and again in her mind. She can return to the shadows where secrets lay dormant, unseen, unspoken, and fire lights her way forward. 

It's all she has now, after all. 

Her fingers curl around the doorknob and she slowly turns it.

It's all she'll have on the other side of that door.

“Cinder?”

Cinder's stomach turns, her chest tightening and her breath stopping in her throat as she stops dead in front of the door. Of course. How could Cinder expect anything to go well for her anymore?

Cinder steadies herself with a deep breath and turns to Winter, who leans back against the headboard, pulling the blanket over her chest as she brushes her hair from her eyes. It’s unfair how gorgeous she looks in this state, messy and real, and Cinder hates the beat her heart skips, hates how it urges her to go back to bed.

“Where are you going?” Winter asks, her voice tired and raspy.

“I don’t know,” Cinder replies as her fingers curl around her boots. 

Winter blinks at her in confusion before her expression settles into understanding, then disappointment (and when Cinder looks closer she can see the pang of heartbreak streak across her features).

“You’re just going to leave?” Winter says as she leans forward, letting the blanket slip from her hand. “Again?”

Cinder’s jaw sets against that small part of her that wants to deny her accusation. “I can’t stay, Winter. You know I’m wanted.”

“I already told you, we can figure something out.”

Cinder’s brow furrows and her nostrils flare. “That’s not the point!” she rebukes, teeth grinding the end of her phrase into a growl.

“Then what is the point?” Winter growls back, and for the first time in years Cinder’s temper is matched again. “You left once to pursue some dream of power, and now you’re just going to leave again? And for no reason, at that?”

“I have my reasons,” Cinder grumbles, and she adds in a private murmur between them, “It hurts too much to stay.”

Winter shakes her head, and there’s another familiar glint in her blue eyes, one that summons memories of the last time they said goodbye. “And you leaving doesn't hurt?”

Cinder opens her mouth to argue, but her words run dry. She can see the cracks forming in her skin, the strands of black coming through the snowy white of her hair; Cinder would recognize a shattering point anywhere.

Winter’s shoulders rise and fall with heavy breaths, her teeth bared and her eyebrows tilted down in ferocity, but it’s more than anger that Cinder sees. She sees a pain, one far too familiar and too exposed and it causes Cinder’s own chest to tighten. She still knows nothing about what Winter’s been through since she left, but she can tell right now that this isn’t the first time she’s felt this pain; she’s far too comfortable in this guise.

Cinder stays still, frozen in place, nervous to move lest she make the cracks split and the ice shatter. There’s so much right now in her control, and she’d almost forgotten what power like this feels like. She’s taken so much before, and she can take again, but now it doesn’t sit right with her. Now, she has nothing to gain but validation for the monster within her wreathed in fire and shadow. 

The bed looks so comfortable, so warm, and Winter’s skin looks so soft. If she stays, she has so long to rediscover Winter, rediscover what makes her smile and laugh that obnoxious snort she’d always tried to hide from the world. She can run her fingers through her hair, marvel at the growing black roots and treasure Winter’s hums of pleasure when she strokes her or the mewls of approval when she pulls. She can enjoy gentle mornings where their day doesn't have to bring war or violence, and she can bury her nose into the crook of Winter's neck and delight in the faint scent of spearmint in her hair as they lie in unfamiliar but blissful, relaxed peace. She can rediscover love, how to earn it, how to receive it guiltlessly, and eventually how to return it.

Cinder’s been left loveless for so long, but this could still be their life, starting now. New moments to build, new moments to cherish, old love to rediscover and new love to nurture.

There are many other lives where this could have been forever from the start.

Cinder’s lips pull into a frown, and the flame roars inside her as she turns to open the door and leave.

_Maybe in another life._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading !! As usual, I really appreciate feedback and constructive criticism so I can get better at writing and make good fics for y'all !!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed !! <3


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